The Day of the Broken Arm

A lazy morning drinking coffee while Zach played Legos on the floor with Zoie.

A quick trip to the grocery store to grab some goodies for the Seahawks game.

Some selfies to show our team spirit!

Then the game began! For the first time in months we got a chance to use our theater room. Excited for the first Seahawks game of the season, we grabbed some yummy snacks and settled in for the afternoon. Little did we know… that the afternoon would take a terribly different turn.

About an hour into the game, Zoie of course became bored just sitting and watching football… to be honest, I’m surprised she lasted as long as she did. She was in front of us playing on the bean bag chairs, or what she calls, billy balls.

It was then she got the idea to get her stool (the one she uses to reach the sink in the bathroom) and jump from the stool to the bean bag chair. We didn’t think anything of it. It was barely a foot off the ground… what could go wrong?

Well, something did go wrong. It was the simplest little thing.
She stepped up onto the stool with one foot and as she lifted the second foot to step fully onto the stool, it flipped backwards out from under her and she crashed forward… catching her full weight with her left arm.

It was awful. It all happened so fast. She went down and when she came back up her face was white as a sheet. We knew immediately that something wasn’t right. I jumped up and pulled her into my arms. She was wailing and holding her arm. One look at it and I knew it was broken. There weren’t any protruding bones, but down by her wrist there was a significant bend where there shouldn’t have been.

Within minutes I had ice on her arm and she was strapped into her carseat on the way to the emergency room. The drive there (25 minutes) took longer than our wait once we arrived. Our nurse was wonderful, so kind and so very gentle with Zoie.

They sent us to get an x-ray right away and the results were instant. There it was… her poor little bone was bent. Right above her wrist.

We were taken to a room and there we waited for the doctor to confirm. The doctor came and told us that it was most definitely broken. There was nothing that they could do at the time. They put her in a splint and sent us on our way, telling us to go to the Shriners Children’s Hospital Fracture Clinic the following morning.

With a pain med prescription in hand, we went home for the night. Our little trooper did really well. She was in a little pain but the meds seemed to help. She was so strong and brave, never complaining and wanting to share with everyone what had happened.

On Monday morning we were first in line at the Fracture Clinic. They were wonderful. Explained that her radius had a greenstick fracture which is why it was bent and not fully broken in pieces. This is because she is so young and her bones are still soft; a blessing. The ulna is also displaced and has a small fracture in it. With diagnosis in hand, they were confident that surgery to repair the displacement was not needed (again due to her age) and that simply a cast for several weeks should do the trick.

She chose a pink sparkly cast. No surprise there.

So now we are home again and learning to deal with life a little differently.
Some things are harder for Zoie again, like getting dressed and buckling her car seat, things she’s been proudly doing on her own for some time.

It will be an adjustment for sure. But she is the strongest little person that I know. She’s already spent some time in the garage trying to figure out how to bike and scooter with a bent arm that doesn’t reach one handle.